SEARCH FOR SOURCES OF PETROLEUM

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 14823, 10 November 1948, Page 4

SEARCH FOR SOURCES OF PETROLEUM

SURVEY OF OCEAN FLOOR Explosion Echoes Analyse Earth Eventual Problem Of Extraction Three oil companies are using man-made earthquakes off the Santa Barbara coast in an effort to find vast new sources of petroleum. Dull reverberations of a potent new explosive called EP-120 (nitrocarbcnate) create shock waves as deep as 15,000 feet below the ocean bottom. Never before has man sought to pump oil from rock cavities underlying the open sea itself.

The venture is costing Shell Union, and Continental Oil Companies £625 a day. On October 1, 13 concerns pooled their resources for a risky survey of the submerged lands from Point Conception' to Pont Estero.

If analysis of complicated geophysical profile and contour charts shows that oil does exist under the floor of the Pacific, an even tougher problem lies ahead that of extracting the fuel. The process of extracting possibly would entail the creation of an artificial island offshore from which drills could whipstock into the oily treasure troves, or it might involve a caisson rig with waterproof drill manipulated by electronic remote control. The . sea exploration job goes on, five days a week, with three tiny fleets in operation. The techniques in use are as old as Chang Ileng’s “earthquake viewer” invented in 132 A.D., and as mysteriously new as “shoran,” the lates navigational miracle. United Geophysical Company has been surveying the waters from Ventura to an area north-west of Santa Barbara. With the explosion of EP-126, two buoyed cables astern the fleet boats pick up in geophones, of electronic ears, the robot shockwave impulses, and at a recording room they are changed by a galvanometer into light beams on a supersensitive film. These wavy lines are analysed by a crew at Montecito onto maps, the exposed film eventually being pieced together like strips of aerial photographic mosaic. Eventually, the 13 companies will possess the subsea “profile” of California from Half Moon Bay to Newport.